But the filmmakers themselves seem too intoxicated by the mystique of the period to take full account of the sad, bleak aspects of the story they have to tell.
"The filmmakers themselves seem too intoxicated by the mystique of the period to take full account of the sad, bleak aspects of the story they have to tell," A. O. Scott wrote in The New York Times about this film from Lone Scherfig, written by Nick Hornby and based on a memoir by Lynn Barber.
There was a bleaker aspect to the action too, however, as three of the 115 runners on the card suffered fatal injuries during their races.
Like writers, they can delve into the darker side of the soul and the bleaker aspects of society.
Rooted in the bleaker aspects of Scotland's landscapes, it is something that his characters continually search for, in these punchy and poetic tales yet fail to find.
At the same time, the narrators do not avoid the bleaker aspects of the ghetto's history, offering a damning picture of, for example, the Jewish police force, which collaborated with the Nazis and became an institutional accessory to murder.
Meanwhile, Slumdog Millionaire's success, and specifically the three music nominations which rewarded homegrown composer AR Rahman, also appear to have silenced the national row in India over the film's portrayal of the bleaker aspects of life in sprawling Mumbai.
But give these stories a closer look, and they reveal much bleaker aspects of our society.
Although black respondents continued to hold a bleaker view of some aspects of New York than whites did, the disparity was not as great as it has been in past Times polls.
Even covered in fresh snow, which can lend anything a beautiful luster, the dead trees gave the landscape a bleak, post-apocalyptic aspect.
Understandably, the developers did not take quite so bleak a view, although they acknowledged the camel-like aspects of the interim version.
